The Mystery Bounty Tournament (MBT) format, which has been gaining popularity with the poker community over the last couple of years, has finally gotten its full debut at PokerStars, one of the world’s biggest online poker sites.
On January 7, PokerStars ran its first ever Mystery Bounty Sunday Million, alongside a smaller $11 buy-in Mystery Bounty event, all as part of the ongoing New Year Series. It proved to be a tremendous success.
Both events enjoyed big turnouts, with thousands of players flocking to them both. It follows a successful trial of the new format in December last year, which only allowed for a total of 200 entries.
The huge success of both mystery bounty tournaments prompted the operator to add two more to the schedule next Sunday as part of its ongoing New Year Series.
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Mystery Bounty Sunday Million Was the Biggest in Recent History
It is no secret that the Sunday Million has been having a hard time reaching the $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool in recent weeks, with PokerStars forced to cover overlays in the event on multiple occasions during the last quarter of 2023.
When the operator announced they would run the inaugural Mystery Bounty Sunday Million on January 7, it was unclear whether the $1,000,000 guarantee would be covered and whether the interest of online poker players for the new format was big enough.
Those doubts were dispersed on Day 1 of the event: It attracted 16,234 entries, 4622 of which were re-entries, each worth $109. It created a total prize pool of $1,623,400.
One half of this amount was used to pay the 2671 players who made the money, while the other half went towards the MBT prizes. These were paid out for every elimination past the bubble.
Each player who was able to eliminate someone after the bubble burst received a golden envelope with a MBT prize with a minimal value of $137.92, which was enough to ensure a substantial profit on the $109 buyin.
A single $50,000 bounty was given out as the tournament’s top bounty prize, while five bounties worth $15,234 could also be won for late stage eliminations.
| Bounty Value | Number of Bounties | Total Value | Prize Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| $50,000 | 1 | $50,000 | $0.04% |
| $15,234 | 5 | $76,170 | $0.19% |
| $4,687.38 | 26 | $121,871.88 | $0.98% |
| $1,542.68 | 79 | $121,871.72 | $2.97% |
| $459.89 | 265 | $121,870.85 | $9.98% |
| $148.08 | 823 | $121,869.84 | $30.99% |
| $135.92 | 1457 | $198,035.44 | $54.86% |
| Total | 2656 | $811,689.73 | $100% |
On top of the MBT prizes, players who made a deep run were also rewarded handsomely for beating over 16,000 entries, with Ukrainian player “SoEzForMe” walking away with the Sunday Million trophy and $89,681 in cash.
Most of the other players at the final table also walked away with a five-figure score, while they all scored additional wins from their MBT envelopes as well, although the exact bounties scored by each player were not disclosed by the operator.
$11 Mystery Bounty Event Creates a Colossal Prize Pool
PokerStars ran a smaller $11 Mystery Bounty event alongside the Sunday Million and put a massive $250k guaranteed prize pool on that one.
Much like the Milly, this event also smashed its prize pool and attracted almost 30,000 entries in total, creating a prize pool of more than $293,000.
Nearly 5000 players were paid in this one, with the champion taking home $12,625 in cash, and the player who landed the biggest bounty prize of the event taking home a grand prize of $10,000.
Everyone who scored a knockout during the ITM stage of play also won $14.98 for instant profit on the day, with the champion scoring 19 golden envelopes.
PokerStars Schedules New MBT Events
Just as the two inaugural MBT events at PokerStars came to a close, the operator added two more events with the exciting new format to the calendar.
Both events will run on Sunday, January 14, as side events of the New Year Series, and will feature buy-ins of $22 and $215, alongside $100k and $200k guaranteed prize pools, respectively.
The guarantees on these two events may be smaller compared to last weekend’s events, but we can expect a massive turnout and much bigger actual prize pools, judging by the interest players have shown in the inaugural events.
As the New Year Series approaches its end and we look forward to PokerStars switching back to its regular weekly schedule, the operator will at least consider either adding MBT events to the regular schedule, potentially as a Sunday Major. Special edition MBT Sunday Millions are also likely in the future.
